author contributions :)

source/_posts/van-moorselaar2023.md

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+---
+title: van-Moorselaar et al. (2023)
+subtitle: 'Electrophysiological indices of distractor processing in visual search are shaped by target expectations'
+date: 2023/06/01
+authors:
+- van Moorselaar, Dirk
+- Huang, Changrun
+- Theeuwes, Jan
+journal: J. Cogn. Neurosci.
+paper_url: https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_01986
+data_url: https://osf.io/9827w/
+---
+
+Although in many cases salient stimuli capture attention involuntarily, it has been proposed recently that under certain conditions, the bottom-up signal generated by such stimuli can be proactively suppressed. In support of this signal suppression hypothesis, ERP studies have demonstrated that salient stimuli that do not capture attention elicit a distractor positivity (PD), a putative neural index of suppression. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear that regularities across preceding search episodes have a large influence on attentional selection. Yet to date, studies in support of the signal suppression hypothesis have largely ignored the role of selection history on the processing of distractors. The current study addressed this issue by examining how electrophysiological markers of attentional selection (N2pc) and suppression (PD) elicited by targets and distractors, respectively, were modulated when the search target randomly varied instead of being fixed across trials. Results showed that although target selection was unaffected by this manipulation, both in terms of manual response times, as well as in terms of the N2pc component, the PD component was reliably attenuated when the target features varied randomly across trials. This result demonstrates that the distractor PD, which is typically considered the marker of selective distractor processing, cannot unequivocally be attributed to suppression only, as it also, at least in part, reflects the upweighting of target features.

source/_posts/vijayarajah2023.md

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+---
+title: Vijayarajah & Schlichting (2023)
+subtitle: 'Anterior hippocampal engagement during memory formation predicts subsequent false recognition of similar experiences'
+date: 2023/11/01
+authors:
+- Vijayarajah, Sagana
+- Schlichting, Margaret L
+journal: J. Cogn. Neurosci.
+paper_url: https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_02052
+data_url: https://osf.io/xsqw5/
+---
+
+People better remember experiences when they orient to meaning over surface-level perceptual features. Such an orientation-related memory boost has been associated with engagement of both hippocampus (HPC) and neocortex during encoding. However, less is known about the neural mechanisms by which a cognitive orientation toward meaning might also promote memory errors, with one open question being whether the HPC-a region traditionally implicated in precise memory formation-also contributes to behavioral imprecision. We used fMRI to characterize encoding-phase signatures as people oriented toward the meaning (story) versus perceptual style (artist) of storybook-style illustrations and then linked them to subsequent true and false memories. We found that story and artist orientation tasks were each associated with both unique univariate profiles and consistent neural states defined using multivoxel patterns. Linking these neural signatures to behavior, we found that greater medial pFC activation and alignment of neural patterns to the story (but not artist) state was related to subsequent memory success on a trial-by-trial basis. Moreover, among successfully remembered experiences, greater anterior HPC engagement at encoding was associated with a higher likelihood of related false recognitions, consistent with the encoding of broad traces in this region. Interestingly, these effects did not reliably vary by cued orientation. These results suggest that, irrespective of the cued encoding orientation, neocortical and hippocampal mechanisms associated with orienting to meaning (story) over perceptual (artist) features may support memory, with the formation of generalizable memories being a specialty of anterior HPC.